CHAPTER 13   

Sumatra

Singkep Island was a relative monster of a landmass compared to the tiny atolls and spits of land in the area, measuring nearly as large as Singapore itself. It was a key way station for those who survived the fall of Singapore and the Japanese onslaught in the nearby waters. For the white soldiers and civilians, the Dutch administration there was far easier to deal with than the indigenous islanders, who, when not outright hostile, carried more than a whiff of Schadenfreude at their plight. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere carried the motto “Asia for the Asians,” and while none of the locals felt especially attached to that propaganda, the plain fact was that these white colonials had been humiliated by an army that looked more like the natives. This feeling took hold in the region, and even after the Japanese were defeated, most of Southeast Asia threw off the yoke of their colonial overlords in Europe.

Singkep was prized by the Dutch (and soon enough the Japanese) for its copious deposits of tin, which was mined across the island. But it would be another element that would later take on great—and top secret—importance to the western world and make Singkep a significant spot on the map. Immediately after the war, the Dutch made a covert agreement with the United States and Britain to allow them to mine deposits of a radioactive mineral called thorium from Singkep, one of the few places in the world it was found. Thorium was a critical element in the construction of nuclear weapons, and the cache enabled the American effort to stay well ahead in the arms race with the Soviets.

That was far into the future as of the late winter of 1942, when the war in the Pacific was off to a bleak start for the Allies. All that mattered to the survivors of the Grasshopper and Dragonfly was that they were off of Posic and hopefully headed toward safety. Judy rode up front on the tongkang that took her to Singkep, nose pointed ahead, scanning for the enemy, or perhaps just enjoying the ocean breeze. After many hours at sea, the tongkang pulled up to an exceptionally beautiful beach. The passengers disembarked and walked a short distance to the main port city of Dabo, where the Dutch administrator held court. The man seemed to be a godsend. He took the wounded and placed them in a decent hospital, though it was up to the indomitable nurses to continue their care, as the Dutch medical staff had been evacuated already. He fed the group their first decent meal since they had left Singapore nearly a week before.

He also passed along a tantalizing rumor—on Sumatra, in the western port city of Padang, there were British, American, and Australian ships waiting to take survivors to safe havens in India and Ceylon, perhaps even Australia.

The massive island (the world’s sixth largest) to the west loomed large in everyone’s imagination. The heavyweight of the Dutch East Indies, Sumatra straddled the equator and contained vast swaths of unexplored wilderness, most of it rainforest, along with towering mountains, fast-flowing rivers, hostile creatures and natives, and, of course, marauding Japanese, who were landing invasion forces even as Judy was finding water on Posic. Sumatra stretches so far north that its topmost point is a short boat ride across the Malacca Strait to the Siamese-Malaya border. Its southernmost tip reached practically into Batavia. And as the western gateway to Southeast Asia, control of Sumatra directly threatened India and Ceylon on its Indian Ocean flank. In other words, Yamashita and his jungle-taming army were bound to conquer it quite soon.

However, Sumatra also had advantages for the escaping refugees of Singapore. The sheer breadth of the island meant there were lots of places to hide. The Dutch had set up rudimentary but reliable enough transportation systems, mostly bus and short rail lines, and large sections of Sumatra were navigable along its rivers. And there was nothing to the west of Sumatra but open ocean and the British forces in Ceylon and India. As the waters to the east of Sumatra (the South China Sea) were thoroughly dominated by the Japanese, this represented the only real hope of escape.

This renewed possibility of freedom ignited the appetites of the survivors, and Judy ate right along with them. All-they-could-eat veggie stew and rice might not have been the richest of banquets, and for a dog it was hardly on par with a good meaty bone, but it tasted great after the rationing of the past week. The escapees mostly slept outside at Singkep. The officers and the women had been put up in the swankier digs, mostly Dutch clubs, but these supposed places of elegance were so overrun by mosquitoes that finding a spot with a hint of breeze was preferable, even if it meant a dirt mattress.

Judy and the Posic group, Frank and the Pompong group, and many other evacuees from Singapore, most shell-shocked from enemy attacks and dripping wet from abandoning ship, all washed up at Singkep in dribs and drabs. Judy and Frank would have overlapped in Singkep on February 20, when the Kuala and Tien Kwang contingents arrived to join the Grasshopper and Dragonfly group, who had arrived before dawn. At first, there seemed to be an assumption that Singkep would be a good spot to lie low for the time being. It was too small for the Japanese to worry about, with bigger fish such as Sumatra and Java there for the taking, and at least there was food, water, and shelter.

Frank never laid eyes on Judy, as the two main groups of rescued survivors don’t appear to have intermingled on Singkep—with one notable exception.

On February 20, Commander Hoffman of the Grasshopper, along with Kuala survivors Major Nunn; Charles Baker, whose quick thinking and bravery under fire had evidently made quite an impression on Nunn; and a few other high-ranking officials like Brigadier Archie Paris met with the Dutch controller of Singkep. Paris was the commander of the 11th Indian Division in Malaya, an outstanding if offbeat officer who never appeared at his headquarters without his two Irish setters by his side. He was considered an expert on jungle warfare (despite recent events) and had been ordered by the British command to flee Singapore ahead of the Japanese invasion rather than stand and fight. He had been on Singkep for a few days, having picked his way across the frightful waters on a yacht (the dogs, alas, were left behind).

The Singkep administrator may have been helpful to the downtrodden and hungry masses that washed up on his shore, but by the time the officials and officers gathered in his office, he was eager to rid himself of the Brits, saying there was little food on Singkep for the escapees, especially with “two thousand hostile coolies” (native islanders) to feed. Help might come to Singkep, he told Hoffman, but then again, it might not. “He had a very pessimistic outlook,” Baker recorded. “He finished his speech by asking us to keep order and not to loot.”

On that cheery note, many of the escapees made plans to get to Sumatra. That meant another sea voyage, mere days after the lot of them had been aboard larger boats that were sunk in traumatic fashion.

What the Singapore evacuees would do when they reached Sumatra remained an open question. All they had to work on was the unsubstantiated rumor that salvation lay on the other side of the island. Even if they survived the perilous crossing between Singkep and Sumatra, roughly five hundred or so kilometers of wilderness still stood between them and rescue (including the Barisan mountain range, which towered over Padang on the western side). Eventually, the survivors would cross Sumatra from east to west by three main routes. The southern route, through the large town of Djambi (now Jambi) was fastest, as it was a straight shot across the island from there to Padang. But the area was closed quickly by advancing Japanese forces, who made surprise landings at Palembang on December 14 and were working their way north. Only the earliest refugees who made it to Sumatra made it across this way.

Another route, some 460 kilometers north of Djambi, went through a town whose name would become infamous to Judy and Frank—Pakan Baroe. At the moment it was the hub of a good trail west, one that arced down on well-maintained but little-used roads to Padang. The relative few who crossed Sumatra in this fashion found themselves steaming west on board evacuating ships. But because this route was well to the north of Singkep, it required a far longer passage over the Japanese-dominated waters to reach it.

The majority of the escapees used the middle passage. This route meant travel up the Indragiri River to Rengat, a fair-sized village eighty miles inland, which was as far as the river could take them. From there, vehicles carried them across the harsh interior of the island to Sawah Luento, a railhead more than a hundred miles from Padang. Trains then covered the final distance to the port of Emmahaven in Padang, winding through the mountain passes and down to the sea.